Tag: Pennsylvania

Big nights for both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. The former grew his delegate lead (though not by quite as much as our model projected, mostly because there wasn’t any polling in Idaho somewhat because Cruz/Kasich had a stronger-than-expected night). Sanders, though, still lost ground overall to Hillary Clinton.

Clinton still leads by over 200 pledged delegates, and our model still shows her getting a majority of delegates without dipping into her (substantial) super delegate reserve – but only just. The big caveat here is that Sanders will almost certainly get a national bounce from Michigan, and the result there may suggest that polls in other states are under representing his strength:

Sanders had a big night, but Clinton (possibly) still on track for win without superdelegates.

On the GOP side, the thing to watch is if Rubio drops out. He’s widely thought of as the “establishment” candidate, but, as we’ve reported before, he’s not necessarily loved by GOP insiders. We’re speculating here, but Rubio’s best hope may be to do what he can to help Kasich survive in the hopes he could win points with insiders for a potential Kasich ticket emerging from a brokered convention. It’s a risky strategy: for Kasich to win at the convention, he would need to wheel and deal considerably, possibly abrogating whatever primary deal he strikes with Rubio. Oh, and Trump is still on target to win:

If Rubio dropped out today, Trump would likely win Florida, and Kasich would pick up Pennsylvania and Ohio – but Trump would still win on the first ballot.

There are 234 winner-take-all delegates on March 15 in Florida, Ohio, and Illinois. Polls show Trump winning all of them. If he does, we project him winning in early May. Kasich appears to have a better shot at winning his home state than Rubio does in his. If Kasich pulls it off, the #NeverTrump movement’s only hope – and slim one at that – is to get Rubio to drop out and full-throatedly endorse Kasich.

Prior to Super Tuesday, we thought there were no scenarios in which Donald Trump didn’t go on to get the 1,237 delegates needed to win on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention. Trump had a slightly weaker than expected delegate haul than we expected, and there are a few glimmers of hope for the #NeverTrump crowd.

It turns out that Mitt Romney is probably right: the most likely way for Trump to not win is for Marco Rubio and John Kasich voters to vote strategically. Our latest projections, which include Trump taking the big winner-take-all states of Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Illinois shows Trump taking the majority in after April 26. This is mostly on the strength of a huge March 15 haul for the candidate, where we see him picking up over 500 delegates to reach 881 of the 1,237 needed.

If Trump wins the big winner-take-all states, he should wrap it up before May 1.

There is no world in which the non-Trumps get block his first-ballot nomination without a Rubio victory to claim Florida’s 99 delegates. Trump leads leads Kasich in Ohio 30.2% to 26.6%. There’s no polling for Puerto Rico’s 23 winner-take-all delegates, but we’ll assume for the sake of argument that Trump doesn’t win that one. Move those to the other side, and Trump’s victory moves all the way to the final day, but he still wins.

So what’s the most-likely non-Trump path? Polling beyond March is spotty, but if Trump loses Florida, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Puerto Rico, and California, you’ve got a contested convention. He currently holds double-digit leads in PA (April 26) and NJ (June 7), and Cruz may be within a few points in California, but there haven’t been any good polls there forever (probably because most normal nomination contests would be wrapped up by the final day.

A simpler take is this: If Trump wins Florida and Ohio, there is virtually no option to stop him. If he loses those, there’s a possibility to block him. If he also loses Illinois on March 15, that would suggest the numbers we’re using to project are too high, and Trump may fall several hundred delegates short.

Of course, all of this assumes that Trump loses a contested convention; it’s hard to imagine what policy concessions the other candidates can offer true Trump delegates. Trump has between 250 million and 10 billion (depending on your source) convincing reasons to persuade other delegates to break camp if he needs to.